The Simian Line (2001)
Does the future lie in the palm of your hand?
Genre : Drama
Runtime : 1H 46M
Director : Linda Yellen
Writer : Gisela Bernice
Synopsis
The Simian Line is an American improvisational film, released in 2001. When Katharine (Lynn Redgrave) throws a party on Halloween, a psychic called Arnita (Tyne Daly) predicts that one of the three couples present at the party will break up by the end of the year. The guests don't take her seriously. Arnita doesn't tell them that she can see a fourth couple at the party, the long dead Mae (Samantha Mathis) and Edward (William Hurt). As days go by, Katharine grows increasingly jealous of her lover Rick (Harry Connick, Jr.), and his flirting with her neighbor Sandra (Cindy Crawford). Sandra is married to Paul (Jamey Sheridan). Marta (Monica Keena) and Billy (Dylan Bruno) are rock musicians who live in the same building as Katharine.
Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux. During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet.
Germany 1982: The country is divided into two parts. Nele, coming from West-Germany, travels to East-Germany where she meets Captain, singer of a band. They fall in love with each other, but the regime "takes care" of their relationship, meaning: They can not see each other again. Germany 1990: The country is reunited. Nele starts searching their lost love...
An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.
Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness.
Russ Richards is a TV weatherman and local celebrity on the verge of losing his shirt. Desperate to escape financial ruin, he schemes with Crystal the TV station's lotto ball girl to rig the state lottery drawing. The numbers come up right, but everything else goes wrong as the plan starts to unravel and the game turns rough.
A female teenager witnesses a murder in a desolate high density housing area on the outskirts of Berlin and is henceforth in danger.
Tom Ripley - cool, urbane, wealthy, and murderous - lives in a villa in the Veneto with Luisa, his harpsichord-playing girlfriend. A former business associate from Berlin's underworld pays a call asking Ripley's help in killing a rival. Ripley - ever a student of human nature - initiates a game to turn a mild and innocent local picture framer into a hit man. The artisan, Jonathan Trevanny, who's dying of cancer, has a wife, young son, and little to leave them. If Ripley draws Jonathan into the game, can Ripley maintain control? Does it stop at one killing? What if Ripley develops a conscience?
Joe Dirt is a janitor with a mullet hairdo, acid-washed jeans and a dream to find the parents that he lost at the Grand Canyon when he was a belligerent, trailer park-raised eight-year-old. Now, blasting Van Halen in his jacked-up economy car, the irrepressibly optimistic Joe hits the road alone in search of his folks.
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
Billy Madison is the 27 year-old son of Bryan Madison, a very rich man who has made his living in the hotel industry. Billy stands to inherit his father's empire, but only if he can make it through all 12 grades, 2 weeks per grade, to prove that he has what it takes to run the family business.
Top student Jane Ryan heads to Manhattan for a college-scholarship competition. Her rebellious twin Roxy Ryan goes along to crash a video shoot. But anything can happen - and does - in a romp involving a pursuing truant officer, a smuggler, hunkalicious guys and the girls' realization that when the chips are down, a sister can be the best friend of all.
Jed Clampett and kin move from Arkansas to Beverly Hills when he becomes a billionaire, after an oil strike. The country folk are very naive with regard to life in the big city, so when Jed starts a search for a new wife there are inevitably plenty of takers and con artists ready to make a fast buck
In 1965, a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer has a son at the age of 15 and struggles to make things work with the drug-addicted father.
A woman's life is destroyed when she discovers that her husband has another family.
A policeman on night patrol picks up a young girl and rapes her. The following day she complains and he is given six years. On coming out of prison he gets work as a private detective, and is hired to watch a fashion seller - who turns out to be the girl he raped, who has never forgotten him.
Two babies are switched at birth. When the mistake is discovered 12 years later, it leads to complications in the lives of both families. One family is affluent, with dutiful and (apparently) contented children. The other family is poor, with rambunctious (even delinquent) children, often hungry, but with lots of laughter in the house.
The naive and self-conscious Leah mistakenly signs a pact with the devil Abargadon. But she's on Heaven's hit list, so the Archangel Gabriel intervenes to bring about the demon's demise. But Leah begins to find Abargadon attractive and not so bad. She decides to save his soul.
Five young Europeans (German, English, and Irish) try to find answers to life's questions in India and Thailand.
Simon Watterman, a space archaeologist, discovers the "Munchies" in a cave in Peru. Cecil Watterman, Simon's evil twin brother and snack food entrepreneur, kidnaps the creature. What Cecil does not know is that the creature, when chopped up, regenerates into many new creatures and are they mean!
Dallas, an American golf tutor, arrives in a quiet Sydney suburb to teach at the local school and sets about causing chaos with the family she stays with.
